I like to end the year on a quiet note, and this last week off has definitely been that. If I wrote a memoir of it, it would be titled Eat, Read, Knit and would be the most boring book ever written, including the one written by the man who wrote down every single thing he did, thought, ate, or excreted every day of his life. Well, mine would be shorter, at least.
Even if reading about it would be boring, I wasn’t bored. I made an entire sweater that has been on my list forever, I listened to 3 audiobooks while I knit it, and actually read (with my own eyes) Wild by Cheryl Strayed – enjoyed it thoroughly. I gained the requisite 3 pounds eating all the wonderful goodies everyone made us – hey, I couldn’t let them get stale, could I? Jack and I took long walks to make up for it, and I found out that he’s afraid of my new camera, which beeps rather a lot. Modern life is hard for such a little squirrel.
So, here’s “Tea with Jam and Bread” by Heidi Kirrmaier, which I made with three colors of Ella Rae Classic Superwash and have hardly taken off this week. Simple, comfortable, and a great way to use up random balls of worsted weight yarn of any variety, although for such a wear-all-the-time sweater, it’s nice to have machine washable yarn:
And I adore pockets in sweaters for the convenience.
I assume you saw that our class schedule is posted. I’m sure the Vodka Gimlet class will be very popular but if you’re on the fence, here is Janet in hers, which looks so great:
I love that rich color on her, don’t you?
I made this wonderful long scarf from a skein of Blick Fang (which means something like eye-catching in German) and a ball of good old Galway held together. Blick Fang is a funky extrafine merino bouclé that is a little pricey, but held together with Galway, the price of this warm, soft, and unique scarf becomes reasonable:
It was fun to make in seed stitch on big needles, and you really only feel the softness of the poufs when you’re wearing it. (I had to give a test run on one of Jack’s walks.)
Anne Nordhoy made a bunch of small projects for gifts, many of her own design. A beautiful cowl with small bobbles in Maxima:
A warm hat in Cambio:
And a pair of beautiful socks in Regia Silk:
Nadine Lyon knitted all these afghan blocks and Donna Guthrie put them together for her, in a stunning piece:
it’s to be a lovely gift for someone!
Chris Dreazen and her daughter Kristin, visiting from London, came in to drop off the most luscious and beautiful bunch of cookies you’ve ever seen – I should have taken a picture of them because they were works of art in themselves, but instead I snapped these neat mitts that Kristin made:
Janice Bieber stopped in for some last-minute reassurance with her latest project and looked so great in her Einstein and matching beret that I asked for a photo:
I ordered a few skeins of new yarns from Plymouth, called Gabriela and Maciel. Both are quite lovely hand-dyes in wool/alpaca blends. Maciel (below) is a worsted weight made from superwash merino, with just 10% alpaca and I was curious to see how it would wash in the machine. Beth Blair kindly made this swatch for me and I threw it in with my regular cold-water wash. Happy to report no felting and just the lightest little bit of alpaca bloom, with softens and smooths the feel of the fabric. I think I’ll be ordering more of this for stock:
And here is my Christmas break sweater, which I’ve been meaning to make for months. It’s Porticus, a one-piece circular yoke sweater with a funnel neck and a fairly easy stitch pattern to break up the surface a little bit, done in Fresco, a sport-to-DK weight wool/alpaca/angora blend. It came out just as I imagined it, soft and cozy and lightweight, a great casual look:
I absolutely can’t wait to open the store in a couple days, so my vacation did its job. We’ll be there to help you blow through all those gift certificates! Meanwhile, have a safe New Year’s Eve and a wonderfully fabulously gorgeously marvelous 2013!
Trish
